Sand
by Cruelest Sea
Summary: A hero's courage is not always recorded in the pages of history but rather in the hearts of those who knew him. Post-series.


_"True heroism is remarkably sober, very undramatic. It is not the urge to surpass all others at whatever cost, but the urge to serve others at whatever cost." - Arthur Ashe_

_**Sand**_

I was six years old the first time I saw him.

We'd just moved to the outskirts of Dodge, Pa trying to make ago of a new farm for the third time in four years. The stranger rode in on a buckskin, scanning the horizon with an unmoving blue gaze as if he expected someone, some spector, to be waiting there among the trees.

His name was Matt Dillon, and Dodge was his town, not out of love or even a will to dominate but rather a devotion to duty, a thirst for justice, for a place where honest folks could live and work without fear.

Marshal Matt Dillon. I can still see him standing there, talking to Pa, a man as big as the sky with a voice that commanded respect with a single word. There was a gun strapped to his thigh, cleaned and ready, the holster worn from repeated friction of the .45 being drawn and replaced. Later I'd learn he'd killed many men with that gun, so many no one could say an exact number. He went on killing, fighting, doing the dirty work to keep the town safe. I don't know if anyone was grateful, if they ever thanked him, even then.

He must have been a young man at that time, but the life he'd chosen had already etched lines into his face, burned a vague sadness into those clear eyes like a jagged scar.

Most of all I remember the star, the silver bit of metal pinned to his chest over his heart, shield and target, savior and avenging angel all in one glimpse.

He must have seen me then, because that gaze that had stared down so many men shifted to me. He took a step forward and I didn't move, eyes wide. His hand reached forward and patted my head, a smile touching his mouth. I don't recall that he spoke but the smile was gentle.

I saw him little in the years that followed, only occasionally in town. Sometimes he was coming out of the Long Branch, and I'd see him talking to the red-haired lady there. Miss Kitty, they called her, the marshal's woman. I remember thinking she was very pretty, yet strong of mind, of will. A woman who would never lean too hard on him, never expect too much. She was good for him, I think, like Ma was to Pa, a completion of all he was and could be.

I was ten before I truly saw him again, on a summer day so hot your skin felt like a match eating away at paper. He rode in, from further west beyond our land, slightly slumped in the saddle as though he were very tired. I came forward and saw the color of his face, milk white beneath the tan. He tumbled off his horse just a few yards from the house, hitting the ground and lying still and silent. I was afraid to go to him, afraid he was dead. It was Pa who got there, who turned the big man over and discovered the crimson stain already soaking his chest.

He stayed with us for six days, too weak to be moved. I hung around the doorframe while Doc changed his bandages, watched as Ma spoonfed him soup to restore his strength. Once he caught me looking and turned with visible effort to look back. One side of his mouth lifted in a weak but gentle smile, the attempt costing him strength he could ill afford to lose. I thought him a gentle man, then, the kind of man a person is privileged to know. I couldn't understand why someone had hurt him, why people hated him so.

Years passed and Dodge changed the same way a child does, tantrums giving way to the responsibility of age. The railroad came through, and the breed of men once so prevalent- the outlaws, gun-for-hires, saddle tramps, and bounty hunters- became fewer and farther between until they finally vanished.

Miss Kitty left town around the time Dodge started to calm down. I never knew why, and no one ever spoke of it but I heard it changed Marshal Dillon. He didn't smile as much anymore, didn't walk up on Boot Hill and study the graves as if remembering. He simply lived on, continued his job as he had for nineteen years, and after a while most of the town forgot there'd ever been a woman for the marshal. But I imagine he never forgot.

I was married with two children and living in Wichita when I recieved word that the former marshal of Dodge City had passed away, died quietly in his sleep. It wasn't unexpected I suppose, for he was a very old man by this time and had been in poor health for years.

There were few people at the funeral. Most of his friends had either died or moved away by now, and I suppose most of the rest would prefer to forget the lead and blood that christened their town. The former marshal had been forgotten years ago, rusting in the fading memories of those who glamorized or condemned the era he'd symbolized.

The coffin was sealed, and I put my hand against the rough grain of the wood, hardened like a calloused hand that had once touched a child's hair.

"Relative or friend?" One of the gravediggers, a whiskered man in his fifties, asked. I looked up, met his curious look.

"I barely knew him."

He frowned but continued his work without another glance. My hand dropped back to my side.

"Was there a badge placed with him?" My voice was quiet, hushed, as if I'd suddenly realized all that went with him, the passing of heroes, of men who'd lived by a code lost within the pages of a history book.

"Yes, ma'am. Reckoned it was fitting, seeings as he was a lawman once."

The wind brushed past me, tugging at my skirts and hair, bearing memories of days long ago ended.

"It was fitting."

I stepped away from the grave, watched in silence as they lowered the coffin into the hole, covered it over.

"I ain't sure what they'll put on the marker." The man said, looking over at me. "Name, dates. Don't hardly seem enough to sum up a life."

I felt tears spring to my eyes, mourning for a man I'd known so little. "It should say 'a big man'." My voice was steady, words firm. "A man we'll not see the likes of again."

I walked away from the grave then, went home to my family, to the future and whatever it held.

I've never gone back to Dodge City. But I've never forgotten, or stopped wondering what they did put on the grave.

I finally decided this year that it didn't matter. Words, any words, weren't enough to describe Matt Dillon.

You had to have met him to understand.


End file.
